The Neustadt International Prize for Literature are international bimonthly awards sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today,.

It is a first literary award of its scope to originate in the United States and is one of the very few international prizes for which poets, novelists, and playwrights are equally eligible. It consists of $50,000, a replica of an eagle’s feather cast in silver, and an award certificate. As you may recall, the winner last years editon of the award now in its eighty-ninth year was Mozambican Mia Couto.

The organisers of the award yesterday announced the jury that will be selecting 2016’s winning author and one of them is a name that is very well known to readers of this blog; Mukoma Wa Ngugi. The Kenyan poet and author of Black Star Nairobi (2013), Nairobi Heat (2009), and a book of poems entitled Hurling Words at Consciousness (2006) is on the panel.